Rest Less to Shred Harder

Most of your fellow gymgoers view DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) as an inconvenience of training. Yet as a bodybuilder you revel in it because you know it means you trained with enough intensity to incur some decentmuscle damage, and that will lead to growth. Many bodybuilders think that the only way to increasethe amount of muscle damage they can incur is by using heavier weight and techniques such as negative reps. Yet new research shows thatsimply cutting rest time down between sets can be another effective way to increasemuscle damage. Brazilian researchers had subjects perform four sets of biceps curls tofailure with their 85% RM on the curl, which is a weight that limited them to about six reps per set. In one workout they rested threeminutes between sets, and in another workout they rested just one minute. They found that when they restedjust one minute, markers for muscle damage were significantly greater than when theyrested three minutes. Similar results were reported in subjects resting just one minute betweensets of leg presses using their10-rep max. So consider using shorter rests between sets. If thismethod doesn’t boost DOMS, then you may be genetically predisposedto experiencing less muscle damage in the gym. The researchers found thatsome subjects are “low responders” to bouts of exercise that cause muscledamage in most others.